The Sugar Beet and Green Home Experts present: "Voluntary Simplicity" Join The Sugar Beet on Monday, July 16 at Green Home Experts as we learn about living more simply from expert Krista Meeks. Part of our mission as The Sugar Beet Cooperative is bringing our community together around ideas that encourage us to live more joyfully and sustainably. Our first class in partnership with Green Home Experts will help us explore the concept of Voluntary Simplicity.

What is Voluntary Simplicity? Voluntary simplicity may conjure up images of people quitting their jobs, moving back to the land, growing their own food, making their own clothes, and doing without most of the products of modern technology. Well, that may work for some people, but voluntary simplicity has come a long way since those early expressions of it.

These days, Voluntary Siimplicity is less about doing without certain things, and more about having just enough. It's about living a full life by intentionally designing your life so that you don't have to sacrifice anything important or waste your time, energy or material resources on things you don't really need or cherish. It's also about integrating basic ethical concerns such as fair distribution of labor and resources and the well-being of the natural world into your personal choices. Choosing to eat locally and sustainably certainly fits into this way of life!

Join Oak Park resident, Krista Johnsen Mikos, a professional life-coach and Voluntary Simplicity devotee, for a seminar where you will learn practical information as well as receive helpful tools for your personal Voluntary Simplicity toolbox. There will even have a goal setting exercise, so you will come away with a clear path to lead you on your simplicity journey.